Oh dear. My eyes are watering just reading this. I'll be crossing my fingers for you over the next couple of days. It is super contagious usually, though there seems to be some evidence that the bacterial varieties are transferred more easily than the viral ones. At least she's not contagious until she'd develop any symptoms (with either form), so you don't have to curtail any activities.

Ugh. Remembering the first year I worked after college, with toddlers, and got ringworm, pinkeye (x2), strep throat and discovered a latex allergy. That was a looong year.

Hoy shiitake, tofulish! Pink eye is crazy contagious, yes, but the four times I have had it I was told that it isn't contagious once you've been on antibiotics 24 hours, so hopefully you were lucky and not interacting with him in the contagious stage. I am an adult responsible enough not to touch my eye and then touch other people, and I take not leaving the house with pink eye really, really seriously. It sucks soooo much. Wash everything Leela could've touched really well and pray!

You could just flush her eyes with water a few times over the next couple days (easier said than done) or breast milk can treat it too! I've also heard that it's only contagious if there is drainage, so maybe if you couldn't see the boy's gooey eye everything will be okay.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

around what age should babies reliably be able to settle themselves into sleep? ie you put them down semi asleep and they fall the rest of the way to sleep themselves?

im prettty sure my husband is crazy but he seems to think that at 7 weeks we should start putting BabyPunk down half asleep and she will magically fall asleep on her own. im sure some kids at 7 weeks can do this but ours has proven she cant.she needs to be rocked all the way to sleep.

i dont wake my husband up for late night feedings because he works full time and frankly since we are breastfeeding there is no point in waking him up to sit there. occasionally on nights where im super tired and she just wont go back to sleep like she usually does i will wake him up to rock her to sleep.

twice now he has put her down not all the way asleep and then she squawks and squirms and ends up cryuing and guess who ends up getting up AGAIN to rock her all the way to sleep. he keeps saying we need to start getting her to fall asleep on her own and im saying she's only 7 weeks old!!!

LisaPunk, obviously all babies are different etc, etc, but I started Westiebaby self-settling at seven weeks and it was probably the best thing I've done for both of our sleep. Before that I had to rock her till she was 110% asleep, if I put her down within 10 minutes of her going to sleep she'd just wake again, and it meant I was spending from ~7pm till between midnight and 2am putting her to bed, which made her way overtired and me exhausted too. I wouldn't have believed she was ready/capable of falling asleep on her own, but she surprised me, and she was. Now I put her down awake probably 75% of the time and she's asleep within 5 minutes, both for naps and night time sleep. Not saying it will be the same with BabyPunk, just that your husband might not necessarily be crazy!

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

hmmm....so far it hasnt worked but i guess it's good to know he's not way off the mark.

she has started to self calm a little bit during the day in the pack n play and the swing.previously she had to be half asleep or already calm to go in the swing which normally is like the magical baby soothing device.the past week we can put her in the swing if she's a little upset and she seems to calm down on her own.

I think we started the self-soothing thing around 2 months also - if he was in a good mood and drowsy we would lay him in his bed and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. If he whined I would go in and pat his head and soothe him but not pick him up unless he was actually crying. I think I just lucked out on a really chill baby though.

around what age should babies reliably be able to settle themselves into sleep? ie you put them down semi asleep and they fall the rest of the way to sleep themselves

I'd say try it and hope it works, but don't hold your breath. Raygold is 3 and has never been able to fall asleep by himeslf -- he's rather unusual, though. Beetroot did it when he was over 6 months (not sure when) and some babies can do it straight away (Vax has done it once or twice -- probably a fluke). But from what I've heard, it really varies and depends on your kid.

i think i actually thought it obviously wouldn't work with tzipi and never really tried it. with lydia, i kinda had to, you know? less time, less energy to rock a baby to sleep for one million hours. so we just did it. swaddle, nurse, pop the pacifier in, and lay down. maybe a couple minutes of shushing and patting, but not more than that. and viola, i had a baby that went to sleep on her own. at 7 months, she's not quite so easy any more, but she also goes to sleep pretty reliably at regular bedtimes just by nursing. once they're interested in being mobile, it can be trickier to put them down awake, because they'll just start working on pulling up or crawling or whatever.

my advice to past-me, and thus to you, is if there is a step you can eliminate in baby-care, DO IT. also, don't underestimate how well your baby will cope with being put down by themselves. it's the key to getting showers and eating regularly and getting a few minutes to yourself.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

any recommendations for vegan baby sunblock?also can you put sunblock on a 2-3 month old?

i was searching the word "sunblock" on this forum and i think i read someone saying you're not supposed to put sunblock on such a young baby.

also what do people do about bugs? specifically mosquitos?the mosquitos are TERRIBLE this year because of all the rain.im guessing it's a no no for a young baby but i wont even put bug spray on myself right now because i hold her so much. i cant go out to our damn garden to pick stuff because i get attacked.

My baby wasn't as young as babypunk in the summer, LP, but we felt comfortable using the bug away baby legs when we went down south to mosquito land around 4 months. They have a few styles of baby legs treated with bug repellent and they are not smelly or weird. Also, we just avoided being out during the prime time bugginess of dawn and dusk.

I would ask the pediatrician about sunblock. We bought a sun umbrella from Coolibar to cope with that time period. We would wear her in the carrier and hold the umbrella over her. Also, if you want to avoid sunblock, we had an infant swimsuit with long sleeves and long legs graded to be 50 spfs (broad spectrum). Putting on that suit with hat and the umbrella...you don't need sunblock, so there are (admittedly anal) ways around it.

We used a giant sunhat on his head (one that ties on is a must) and usually kept him in long sleeves and long pants when possible - cotton you know so it was breathable. As far as mosquitos - we mostly just avoid being out during peak times or peak places. I tried a few "home remedies" from Pinterest on myself and they were all epic failures.

@kdub, have you had success with the co so far? I've only heard about this recently, when trying to find info about coconut oil and skin rashes. We used coconut oil back in the day to get nice and brown. We're using Green People brand now, but last summer in the States, we liked Earth Friendly baby and some other brand which I'm forgetting (argh).

Our local organic store, Poofy Organics, has a nice zinc based diaper cream that takes the sting out of bugbites. I'm thinking of trying their herbal bug repellent, because nothing else is working.

And we do the longsleeved shirts etc as well for sunblock and California Baby on her face. I've never heard of coconut oil as sunscreen - I would have thought it was akin to basting your baby in butter.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I've read that coconut oil naturally has an spf of 5 or so. Which is interesting, but I probably wouldn't trust it for real sun protection though, at least here in TX! I asked my pediatrician about sunscreen when Sven was tiny and she said that the "no sunscreen under six months" thing is really for chemical sunscreens that are absorbed into the body and that if we aren't able to rely on shade or UV clothing to do mineral sunscreen, since we are a pasty family and the sun down here is basically evil. I don't like most of the kid sunscreens out there so I actually use my facial moisturizer with sunscreen on Sven (either Juice Beauty or the Ann Web pomegranate moisturizer, which has an spf 20 equivalent). They go on so much drier and absorb much better.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

Thanks! Sounds like she's too young for sunblock so ill just keep her covered which is what I've been doing anyways. Our stroller had a hood thing and I usually put a light blanket over her legs. I do have a wide brimmed hat for her but its way too big for her tiny head.

My one worry is we're taking her to the beach with my parents for a day in August. I'd like to dunk her toes in the ocean and walk around with her. Ill have to see if my parents have a beach umbrella.

Not sure what ill have to do about the bugs for me. I guess I'll just be a pin cushion this summer

When Sven was tiny and I didn't want to use sprays I wore those bug-repellant bracelets. I bought them at Whole Foods and I think they were just infused with citronella and other EOs. They seemed to work pretty well. We don't have insane mosquitoes here like we did back in the Midwest, though, so your mileage may vary!

You're all making me nervous about my master plan to have my next baby in June to maximize work down time. We had it pretty easy with a September baby in terms of sun issues.

Dumb question:Malka has been seriously peeing through her nighttime diaper every night for like two weeks. She goes to bed anywhere from 7:30-10 (depending on daytime naps, our perseverance, etc.) and by the time we go to bed (anytime from 12-1:30), she has completely peed through and soaked the bed. Coincidentally she has been sleeping in our bed for three weeks due to a house guest taking over her room. The house guest left a few days ago, but I've been out of town for work and my husband didn't want to try transferring her back before I got home. Her diaper gets changed when we discover the flood and then she stays totally dry the rest of the night.

Suggestions? It was unpleasant to come home last night and have to sleep on a soaked bed.

For disposable diapers, we've had good luck with either an overnight diaper or a regular diaper plus a booster. One friend of mine has such a heavy wetter she has to use an overnight diaper plus a booster. We do cloth diaper generally, but we had a long phase where we never found a cloth one that worked, so can't help you if you want a cloth diaper solution.